Maturity

Growing up as an MK it is hard to act my age sometimes. Several people see me and think I act older than I am. I personally think I’m very childish in my actions at times. I then think that the people who see me as older must be blind. They aren’t blind and I do appear older than many kids my age.

                When I return to the States, I am much shorter than the people around me and I look younger than most people as well. My appearance seeming to be younger is due to all the make-up 12 year olds wear these days and my height is due to my genes, thanks mom and dad. Once you place me next to kids my age though, even though I don’t look their age, I act older than them most of the time. This is a very confusing time for me because I never know how to act like them.

Here in Honduras I don’t necessarily act my age nor do I act older than it. I’m in between the two. Sometimes when placed with certain people, I’ll appear to be older than I am and the same goes that if I’m with other people I can act my age. In the States I constantly seem to be more mature than the kids my age. My theory is that because of the move to Honduras at 10, I’ve had to go through with things that many kids won’t go through. Just the moving away from everything familiar into somewhere foreign, several kids won’t go through that until they move away to attend college. Most kids my age haven’t had to say goodbye as many times as I have. Most kids my age don’t speak two languages. This is all based off of kids in the States; most of them wouldn’t have experienced what I have while kids from other countries might have.

Maybe I am more mature because of all I’ve gone through in my MK life. I don’t know. I do know that it’s hard to connect with kids my age from the States because they’re immature compared to me. Not everyone is but a lot are. One of my best friends who moved back to the States tells me how hard it is for her to connect with people in her church because they are immature compared to her. She has a hard time interacting with them because she acts older than they do. Another best friend who also moved back says how much fun the kids at her church are and how they made great friends when they went back. I guess it depends where you go and who you meet. It just stinks when you seem to not be able to find anyone who you can have a mature conversation with.

Maturity is all about perspective. I act very immaturely at times (in a good way of course) and other times I act very mature. There are a lot of factors that come into play here. Several things may change depending on the circumstances you are in. I do feel though that adults look at MKs as if they are more mature sometimes and maybe that makes it worse. We can’t connect all the more because the adults are expecting something of us. Either way, I can act either immature or mature and I’m sure all MKs can, just takes the right circumstance to bring it out.

Goodbye, until next time!